Growing up I never saw myself as ever being homeless. But there were times I was close to it. Referring to being homeless in this writing, I am referring to not having a place I could go with any permanency – A place I could call Home in the traditional sense of the word. My two canine companions and I had become wanderers, nomads, travelers in Nature when we removed ourselves from the so-called modern world. Takota and Nanook, and I set off on a journey into Nature back in late October 2017. With many unknowns that could not be seen, we lived in Nature, sleeping in a tent for close to five years. We traveled through eight states.

We saw Nature as being our home. I did feel after leaving Nature in early September of 2022 that I was a homeless person without a real home. But we were fortunate enough to find temporary refuge in the Pacific Northwest from the heavy smoke of the fires, the rain, snow, cold, as with the dangers of an uncertain environment in Nature. I also felt a sense of loss not being in Nature.

I had a purpose for our journey, yet our path was uncertain, our destiny unclear, even my purpose became blurred at times. I did not know how long we would be living in Nature.

My drive, and my dream was to live in Nature, in a tent full time – and of course, with my two companions by my side. I became very concerned about climate change back in 2007, and the impact it would have on our planet. I wanted to experience the beauty of the natural world on a much deeper level before it was too late – before our world began to change in a way that was impacting all life on the planet.

I really didn’t expect the world to change that much, maybe I would notice subtle changes in our time out in Nature, but nothing heart stopping. I was thinking I would be dead before it got too bad. Science was telling us if we didn’t make drastic changes in our behavior we may have until 2050 to reach the point of no return – the tipping point. Where weather patterns, and extreme will become out of control, uncertain, and will become unsustainable for many parts of the world, impacting all of life. And could get progressively unpredictable that everything would turn to total chaos, with may species of plants, trees, and animals (including the human race), moving quickly towards going extinct. A scenario, one would only see in a science fiction movie. I am sure Rod Sterling of the Twilight Zone, would have had a field day, in writing numerous TV shows on this, if he was still around. He is probably looking down on us, saying, “I wish I could be down there providing a reality that many people cannot grasp. Giving a picture of what will happen.” I would like to see what he would come up with to wake the human race up.

But our planet was changing, the weather patterns were changing, getting more extreme.

I would write about our experiences through journals, in reflections while observing the wonders of Nature. I would also post short writings on my Facebook page. One question I had before beginning on this journey was, “would I see the changes in our climate due to climate change?” I also thought, maybe, I would be discovered by a publisher to tell our story. And share to the world how important our planet is for our very survival as a species. How important all life is on our planet.

I was following science, and I was following my gut feelings that things will begin changing much sooner than science was predicting. I had a sense that the world will be changing dramatically by 2030 if we continues on our current path of doing very little to try and slowing this progression down, hopefully making it somewhat manageable with minimal affects on our planet. But even science is slow on seeing the planet as a living being that supports all life on the planet. We are seeing dramatic changes causing disastrous and costly impacts worldwide.

I began seeing things happening that was not the norm. In Australia, catastrophic wild fires in the summer of 2019 – 2020 scorched southern and eastern parts of the country. These fires burned millions of hectares of land and killing or displacing an estimated 3 billion animal. Few human lives were lost, but what will be the lasting affects of the fire in long term health from the smoke? In New York City they experienced flash flooding in September 2, 2021. This flooding was blamed due to climate change. We experienced the Covid-19 pandemic that devastated the world killing more than three million people in the world, it is still with us with different strains. Science is now saying it could be from climate change. I wrote about this, back in 2020 that this could be a possibility. Another gut feeling I had. During our time in Nature, I have seen the impacts of climate change progressively getting worse, where I can say, climate change is definitely here, and is impacting the world with extreme weather, causing droughts, raging fires, more intensity in hurricanes, tornadoes, flash floods, land slides, sea rise, the oceans becoming more acidic, our lakes with more algae blooms, unstable weather conditions, high winds, and so on. And we cannot control it. This is one reason I felt it was to dangerous to be in Nature any longer. A place I felt deeply was my home.